The Operator by Kim Harrison
My rating: 2 of 5 stars I finally got around to finishing the Operator today. I’ve yet to read any of Kim Harrison’s works as actual text. Everything has been an audiobook so far and this was no exception. In this, our heroine is still being pursued by Bill and Opti. Now with the addition of a psychopath name Michael who is also a drafter. Peri just wants to live a quiet and normal life, but is unable to do so because of Bill. There is also the addition of a highly addictive super drug that hooks the user immediately but allows them to remember all their wiped information. I hate to say it, but I was disappointed in this book. I really enjoyed the first in this series. Peri Reed is a dynamic character and the premise that she can reset time is fascinating and I’m not really entirely certain I understand how it works. That’s OK though, generally with sci-fi or fantasy books, the science is already iffy to begin with so I just accept it and move on. In this, her second appearance, Peri is kind of blah. Right from the beginning she seems to be a whinier version of herself than I remember from the first time. The entire book seems to take place over the course of a few days. It contains questionable travel in which the characters seem to travel geographically entirely faster than they should be. I disliked how often the characters ditched each other in order to save each other. The characters jumped loyalties seemingly every other page and it was hard to tell who was turning on who and when. It wasn’t particularly gripping either. Considering that there were no loyalties, when the characters would turn on each other it wasn’t treated with any weight and I found myself not really caring. The addition of LB to the cast of characters was an interesting one and I wouldn’t mind seeing him in future books. I’m still struggling with Bill’s motivation to get Peri hooked on the drug. To start with, the idea that there is a drug that after two doses can hook you to the point of deathly withdrawals is incredibly far-fetched, even for this kind of novel. The fiend that the author turns Peri into once she’s had the first dose makes it clear that the author does not understand addiction. Peri goes from barely noticing any effects to become some raging monster hollering “GIVE ME MY DRUGS NOW!!” OK, this is an exaggeration but someone who is actually addicted to the degree that Peri is supposed to be would be thinking about the drugs constantly. I got off track. Back to Bill’s motivation. Supposedly he wants Peri back and compliant. This is the reason he wants her hooked on the drugs, so that she’ll have to come back to him for a fix. But they mention that there hasn’t been a single successful trial of the drugs and that everyone they hooked on it ends up in a medically induced coma because of the psychosis it causes. There didn’t seem to be any logic behind any of it. I guess when it comes down to it, I’ll stick around for book three if there is one. But if it’s more of the same then I’m tapping out. View all my reviews
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